Help Create My Business Plan
A business plan is the foundation of your enterprise. It’s an integral part of growing a successful company and raising capital. A business plan is imperative whether you’re raising money through venture capitalists or looking to secure funding from banks. It defines your business and lets the reader know your strengths and weaknesses should they invest in your startup. You might have an idea for a business and wonder what software to use to create your business plan. This article will clearly explain the importance of business plan software in generating a business plan and the factors you should consider. Diversely, we will share the best business plan software that can work perfectly for you. Let’s dive in together, shall we?
What Are The Benefits of Using Business Plan Software?
The term “business plan” conjures images of high-powered suits and large buildings. However, in the 21st century, business plans are no longer just for large corporations. They’re used to determine whether any business, from the smallest startup to the largest multinational, will be a success. Business plan software is available for both big companies and small startups.
It can be very helpful in creating a visual representation of your business plan, whether it’s for your customers or banks. Business plan software works with drag and drops features, making it much easier to figure out what needs to be included in your plan.
Here are some of the reasons why business plan software is essential in your business plan:
- Customization. A good software solution provides templates that cover all aspects of the planning process and offers customization options so you can modify them.
- Saves You Time. Business planning software provides you with everything you need to create an impressive presentation. It also allows you to create an online version that you can share with anyone who needs access to it in your company.
- Financial statements. It helps you generate financial statements, including profit-and-loss reports, which many lenders require as part of a loan application and cash flow projections.
- Step-by-step guide. Business plan software will guide you as you work on each part of your document. It also helps you avoid mistakes that could hurt your chances of getting funding or approval for your venture.
- Advice and tips from experts. Business plan software provides sample plans for various types of businesses to see how others have approached their goals.
- User friendly. Business plan software is easy to use and user-friendly. The software comes with step-by-step instructions and templates that you can easily customize to suit your needs.
- Organized information. The information you input into the program is automatically organized and can be easily accessed by the whole company.
- Protect your data. Your information is more secure with them, and they’re well-prepared for any eventuality that might arise. This reason alone should be enough to use the best business plan software for your needs.
Top Business Plan Software Deals For Your Business Plan
Choosing the best business plan software can be a daunting task, especially if you are a beginner entrepreneur. It can also be complex looking at all the features that each business plan solution claims to have in its products. Below are some features worth taking a look at before subscribing to any business plan software:
- Customer Support. Customer support. You must have access to customer service representatives who can answer your questions and help solve any problems you encounter along the way. If you’re not familiar with writing a business plan, it can be easy to make mistakes.
- Pricing structure. Some business plan software products charge by the month, while others require an annual fee or one-time payment for lifetime access. However, your chosen product charges; make sure it fits within your budget so that you don’t spend more than you planned on software alone.
- Features and functionality. Some business plan software products offer more than help with writing a business plan; they also include tools for financial forecasting, budgeting, and marketing.
- Accounting integration. This is one of the most critical elements of any business plan software. When it comes to accounting and books, most businesses will need a low-tech solution—for example, QuickBooks.
- Reports and charts. It’s essential to have an easy way to view information on any aspect of your business at a glance, such as sales figures or expenses by category or by month. You also want charts showing trends over time to make adjustments based on past performance.
Here are our top business plan software picks that will help you in your business plan:
Bottomline
The idea is to get business knowledge under your belt and ensure that this grants you a better understanding of making the right move with your future business. You should design your business plan to attract investors and lenders, not turn them off. Choosing one of the above software can help draft a tremendous plan. What are you waiting for? Visit the website to subscribe to a plan and build your business plan.
LivePlan is a cloud-based business plan software that features a step-by-step business plan creation wizard. Its features are built to help you plan, analyze and forecast every facet of your business. LivePlan can be used to create a new business plan or update an existing one. The platform’s main dashboard displays all the critical details of your plan, such as your goals, projected profit, month-to-month cash flow, and more.
Easily create a winning business plan with LivePlan. The software provides all the tools you need to write a professional plan to wow any audience. Once you’ve completed your business plan, the LivePlan Score feature will broadly show you where your plan works best before investors can see it.
- LivePlan uses the same arithmetic in accounting to ensure that your financials are correct no matter your assumptions about your sales, expenses, cash flow, and profits.
- LivePlan provides that guidance with a library of sample plans and more than 500 example business plans created with its software to inspire you.
- It includes financial charts, graphs, and other visuals to help you present your plan with confidence. You can also collaborate with other team members and share your plans with investors.
- The software includes a variety of financial projections (income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, and ratios) that you can customize and export to Word, PDF, or Excel.
LivePlan offers an affordable, annual subscription to their powerful product. They offer a full 60-day money-back guarantee for both subscriptions.
LivePlan has the following plans:
- Standard. This plan is billed for $10 for the first 30 days and $20 for one month. You can get started anytime by visiting our website and creating your account.
- Premium. The Premium plan costs $40 for one month of access. It includes a one-on-one training session with a LivePlan expert, personalized tutorials and support, financial projections, etc. Visit the website to check all the features included.
Reviews on LivePlan show how impressive their user interface is, easy to use, and high-quality output. Users talk of the solid library of business plan samples that you can use as a starting point for your plan.
iPlanner combines the design of Microsoft PowerPoint with the functionality of traditional business planning tools such as Excel spreadsheets and checklists. With iPlanner, you can organize your thoughts and create a beautiful, dynamic plan to present to investors and team members. The iPlanner gives the tooling, training, and marketing resources you need to grow your business, whether you’re just getting started or ready for the next level. iPlanner software programs feature automatic spell check and grammatical correction. It may seem like a small thing, but these minor mistakes can make your business plan seem sloppy and unprofessional.
- They believe in offering the best value possible for their customers, so they offer iPlanner for a flat fee for unlimited users and an indefinite period.
- Professionally designed templates including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents.
- Financial projections, including 12-month profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, and break-even analysis are included.
- iPlanner.NET Business Plan software allows you to create and manage multiple plans using its multiple features.
- iPlanner.NET Business Plan software uses a built-in Microsoft Windows security system for file access control, which means that only authorized users with access to a specific folder can read
- No limits on users who joined your account
Reviews on iPlanner convey its simplicity. It allows you to import financial data from Quickbooks or Excel.
BizPlan is an innovative, dynamic, and powerful business plan software application. It helps entrepreneurs and small business owners collaborate, plan, and share their ideas. This software gives you a step-by-step guide to starting your own business, and BizPlan also offers live mentor sessions, video learning lessons, and access to an online business funding platform with banks and investors. The company has helped more than 100,000 entrepreneurs build professional business plans. It provides templates and guidance and automates tasks such as financials using data from the user’s company and industry.
- Financial projections. Build what-if scenarios to test new ideas and improve your company’s profitability. Import financial data from QuickBooks or Excel, or create your financial projections for multiple years.
- Pitch Deck. Tell investors why they should invest in your company using our professionally designed Pitch Deck template. You can also easily share it with potential investors through a secure link.
- Educational. This program offers over 100 articles on marketing plans, human resources, strategic planning, market analysis, financial management, and organizational development.
- Free business plan reviews. This feature is particularly useful if you’re new to creating business plans because the company will review them free of charge and offer suggestions on how to improve them before you submit them to investors or lenders.
They offer simple, unlimited plans with exclusive features for your experience.
- Monthly – $29 per month
- Annual – $249 per year, equivalent to $20.75 each month
- Lifetime access. One-time payment of $349
Reviews on Bizplan reveal how helpful the library feature is, including sample business plans from successful companies like Zappos and Patagonia. Users congratulate this resource since it has helped even those without ideas.
Meet the small business software solution designed to help you do more with less. GoSmallBiz is a comprehensive business coaching program that provides you with all of the tools and resources you need to start, grow and manage your business. Experienced small business experts have designed the program to provide you with the best business help possible. Through GoSmallBiz, you’ll have access to personal business coaching, templates, forms, policies, procedures, and many other resources. Meet experienced coaches who will help you set goals for your business and follow through until you achieve them.
- Accounting Tools & Payment Processing. Track your income and expenses with a streamlined accounting platform that integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks.
- Business Planner. Create your plan and then track your progress with interactive to-do lists, charts, and graphs. Review our sample plans for inspiration, or download our plan templates to get started quickly.
- Business Forms. Access over 500 professionally drafted forms and templates.
- Business Tools & Resources. Find resources on marketing, capital, legal issues, taxes, accounting, and more, within the software.
- Website design and hosting. Get a professional-looking website for your business, hosted for free on GoSmallBiz’s servers. Choose from hundreds of templates and customize them with your logo and pictures.
- Online courses to improve your business. Learn how to improve your business with more than 100 different marketing, finance, accounting, and more courses. All courses are self-paced and available online or via our mobile app.
The software allows these plans for a subscription.
The ultimate goal is a professional document that will serve as a valuable tool in raising funds and running your business successfully. Customers have appreciated their experts’ commitment to helping them build their plans.
Meet the best business planning and budgeting solution that helps small and midsize businesses create budgets and forecasts. The software is equipped with sales, production, inventory budgeting tools, and financial reporting features. It also offers business valuation tools, which help businesses value their companies or new acquisitions. PlanGuru includes a dashboard that provides a quick snapshot of sales, gross margins, and expenses. Users can create annual or monthly budgets and perform scenario analysis on the budget data to see how changes would affect their company’s results. Further, PlanGuru lets users upload actual data to compare it against their budgets.
Planning and Forecasting Tools. PlanGuru’s forecasting features are powerful, making it a suitable tool for companies looking to create comprehensive long-term plans. You can easily create budgets or forecast future profits using its templates.
- Business reporting capabilities help users analyze performance and make better decisions.
- It features a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for users to assemble their models and calculate results in just a few minutes.
- This integrated planning application offers budgeting, forecasting, and performance management solutions to help your company manage its financial destiny better.
PlanGuru offers two pricing plans; both plans come with a 14-day free trial.
Reviews on PlayGuru reveal how users are experiencing a fantastic time with all their needs taken care of. Integrating QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite, allowed users to import data from those systems directly into their plan or budget.
GrowThink’s multilayered offerings and comprehensive approach to business planning make it stand out among the pack of business plan software. It has helped thousands of buy-side and sell-side entrepreneurs and executives realize their full potential. Growthink provides simple yet sophisticated tools to help you reach your goals. Its advisory services have inspired companies to grow, inspiring investors to invest. Growthink’s expertise and set of services will allow us to assist the company in capitalizing on our value proposition across multiple verticals.
- They offer consultation services to help you create the perfect plan for your business.
- Experienced business brokers can help you sell your company or find companies looking to be acquired by other companies in your industry.
- You can use GrowThink’s comprehensive database of over 1,000 investors to locate and contact potential funding sources.
- The planning tool allows you to collaborate with multiple team members on your plan and instantly share it with advisors or investors.
Reviews on GrowThink show clients appreciated their customer support. Many university students have highly recommended using the GrowThink University tool, which has helped them draft a good business plan.
The Maus MasterPlan is an easy-to-use financial planning software solution that helps you make the right decisions to keep your business strong. It’s the fastest, easiest way to create accurate, credible projections and “what-if” scenarios, and it provides an intuitive interface that allows inexperienced users to create reliable five-year projections in minutes. The software tool helps you plan and execute your business strategy. It enables you to understand your competitive landscape, identify key opportunities, and develop a tactical plan for capturing them. The masterPlan provides a clear and straightforward framework for producing a winning Business Plan which will impress your Bank Manager, Investors, or Venture Capitalists.
It includes a series of PDF and Word format checklists, which will guide you in writing your business plan. The checklists can be completed by answering simple questions about your business and will lead you through the process step-by-step.
- The software comes with over 500 sample plans that you can use as inspiration and gives you access to a treasure trove of online tools and resources.
- You can use MasterPlan for any business purpose, such as product planning, sales forecasting, marketing strategy, and strategy formulation.
- MasterPlan also supports collaboration between multiple users by providing a shared repository for all their documents. This helps users share ideas with clients and colleagues, including the ability for team members to view each other’s work.
In reviews, users are experiencing a few errors while accessing the software. Besides, it’s completely customizable and features a wide range of modules, allowing you to design your financial system based on what works best for you.
Enloop is a simple software that automates the process of creating your business plan. The tool builds out your financial statements and charts with just a few critical inputs from you, including information on your business model, industry, and location. In addition to the business plan basics, Enloop also provides users with an at-a-glance overview of their strengths and weaknesses. The software compares your business plan with that of other similar businesses in your industry and determines whether or not it is likely to succeed.
- The Enloop Performance Score is a financial score assigned to your business plan based on the health of its financials.
- Enloop uses standard web technologies like HTML and JavaScript to generate text and charts for each plan.
- Enloop also provides automatic text writing based on the data you put in.
- You can also access Enloop’s free financial projections template with key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure the success of your business or department.
- Enloop also offers users access to its online database of sample business plans, which includes more than 500 real-world examples taken from actual companies and industries.
Enloop is priced on a subscription plan basis and includes three editions:
- 7-Day Free Trial. The Free edition includes access for one user, automated financials for up to three years, five company reports, and basic account management tools. It’s available for seven days only.
- Detailed Edition. Some exclusive features include unlimited company reports for $19.95 per month or $11 per month when paid annually.
- The Performance Edition. Includes everything in the previous two editions plus an additional feature called Enloop Score. Plans are available for $39.95 per month or $24 per month when paid annually.
Reviews on Enloop is a fantastic, simple-to-use program that will make all of your planning needs a breeze. It offers everything a business planner may need on their assumptions.
